Sophie Beck

Interview by Carey Sargent, EPFL, NCCR MARVEL

The biggest challenges facing female scientists are... 

First of all, I can only speak for myself and I don’t want to make any generalizations. I often feel in my case anyway that men often present their work a bit more persuasively. I find it challenging not to get irritated by that. I believe that it’s important to be open or vulnerable about the challenging or unclear aspects and that this is important for progress. At conference events I’m often intimidated by how convincing they all sound. If course not all women are this way, but maybe have more of a tendency to lean in this direction. 

I think it’s tempting to try to adapt or to try to mimic that, but of course it somehow seems false because it is not me, but I guess I can try to find a balance. I try not so much to sell it, but I think I have very good role models for this, for example Nicola Spaldin and Claude Ederer, to just present the facts and not be so much trying to sell the latest idea and also being open to admitting that there are some unclear things. I wanted to add though that I find it difficult to think about gender-specific challenges—I don’t find any specific disadvantages. 

I studied science because... 

This sounds a bit idealist, but I like to think of the world as a puzzle, I enjoy thinking about and finding the connections. So I was definitely always interested in science, but then afterwards in high school the connection with physics happened somewhat randomly because I was forced to take an extended physics course. But I realized that the other students were the kind of people that I find it very easy to connect with. Their minds somehow worked similarly, we find the same things enjoyable, we appreciate random symmetries in nature.  

If I weren't a scientist, I would be... 

When I was younger I wanted to become a detective. I think it may be unrealistic now though! Somehow I’ve always been interested in dentistry, or maybe more generally in being a doctor, but what I like about dentistry is the more practical aspect of it and being in contact with patients. Being a doctor would give me the same options for finding and connecting pieces, but more on a biological level. This might be debatable, but it seems a bit more connected to reality, so it has some pros and cons, I guess. 

My most exciting MARVEL discovery to date has been…

I would probably name a collaboration with Francesco Petocchi and Philipp Werner in Fribourg. Our contribution only serves as a starting point, but their analysis of the efficiency of Mott solar cells is impressive and exciting!